For his second restaurant, superchef Tony Maws dials back on the flourishes and works wonders with a grill. With a little more consistency, this Somerville newcomer might truly shine.

While dining at the Kirkland Tap & Trotter, I kept asking myself, â€śWould this pass the blindfold test?â€ť That is, if you didnâ€™t know this was food under the supervision of Tony Maws, possibly Bostonâ€™s most famous current chef, would you think it was particularly notable? Would you consider it much more than big, agreeable, meaty food suited to be paired with a very good on-tap beer list?

On the Cambridge-Somerville line next to DalĂ­, Kirkland cheerily evokes a classic form, like the Bistrot didâ€”here, a cross between British pub and French brasserie. As at Craigie, thereâ€™s an open kitchen, which looks out onto the bar area and dining room. Kirkland is bigger and airier, though, with some walls of stripped concrete, others of exposed brick, and a crowded bookshelf on one wall of the bar. Thereâ€™s a communal table with views of the kitchen; a strong bar program; and service that signals casual friendliness. It is frankly more pleasant to sit in than the always-cramped Craigie, even when itâ€™s packed, as it was from the start.

The food is meant to be comfortable, too. Maws says he wanted to evoke the meals heâ€™d cook for his family on a Monday night, the usual chefâ€™s night off. By that, he means far simpler dishes than those at Craigie. Unless youâ€™re the dab hand that Maws is at, say, rabbit terrine or confit pork belly, though, youâ€™re not likely to enjoy many of these dishes at home.

However, you might have a higher hit-to-miss ratio than Kirkland did three months in. On some visits, I found inconsistencies in seasoning, richness, and portion size, which, because of ambiguous menu organization at the time of my visits, seemed to bear little relation to price, or to whether the dishes were meant as first or main courses.

Two years ago, chefs started competing over who had the most artisanal brick oven for wood-fired pizza. Maws is the first local chef I know to have a wood grill from Grillworks, which makes Tuscan-style models with ingenious subtleties, like the ability to lift and lower on a pulley a grooved metal shelf that allows slow cooking, letting food absorb a gentle smoke flavor. Iâ€™m hoping for a similar arms race. Kirklandâ€™s cooks put the grill to sometimes brilliant use, turning out dry-rubbed wonders that showcased what Maws credits his first teacher and mentor, Chris Schlesinger, with showing him years ago at East Coast Grill. Like smoky lamb ribs ($15), say, or a dramatic grilled salmon head ($16) that was the Kirkland showstopper and a dish that demonstrated why so many chefs say that cheek and jowl are the sweetest meats.

Letâ€™s say, then, that Kirkland has its merits. Especially if you stick to stuff you can suck.

For instance, shrimp in an ancho-chili dry rub, four on a skewer, over that pink pickle sauce with some baby arugula and thin-sliced watermelon radish ($16): gone in a minute, including the shells, which I ate, too. Lamb ribs, black with smeared garlicky vadouvan, were lightly smoked before being grilled and are guaranteed to make you happily wipe lamb fat off your mouth. Half a chicken ($24), cut into pieces and marinated overnight with zaâ€™atar and other Mediterranean spices, was infused with flavor as much by the grill as by the herbs and spices, which Maws says he buys from a spice shop in the West Village that sells to no less than Ana Sortun.

Portion sizes, though, were simply puzzling. Maybe it was the menu categorization, which put â€ścoldâ€ť where appetizers would be, then â€śfish,â€ť â€śmeat,â€ť and â€śvegetablesâ€ť where you would have expected main courses to be. The idea was that anything, cold or veg, could be an app or a main, to mix and match as you like. But it didnâ€™t provide a guide to how to make a mealâ€”and neither did the servers.

Other inconsistencies were presumably artifacts of this extended settling in. Several appetizers, like the tuna rillettes ($14), came to the table so cold you could barely discern what flavors the kitchen was going for. Short ribs ($28) required, like the chicken, â€ś20-plusâ€ť minutes of advance-order time, yet were in dire need of longer braising. Grilled pleurotes, porcini, and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms over a soothing pesto of walnut and arugula ($15) were the best standalone of the vegetables; the Brussels sprouts ($8), meanwhile, were underseasoned and swimming in duck fat.

Kirkland needs more time to find its groove. The best dinner by far that I had there was on a Monday night when the place was three-quarters empty and Maws was off duty; I took this to mean that the menuâ€™s a bit long and ambitious and the kitchen not yet ready to handle the crowds. But thatâ€™s what I say, not what the crowds say. Kirkland is a crowded hit and, Iâ€™d bet money, set to stay that way.